


A Heartbeat Closer

by keithyourpal



Series: shiro/adam + shiro/keith [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Disabled Character, Canon Gay Relationship, Everyone Is Alive, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Break Up, Post-Kerberos Mission, Reunion Sex, Reunions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-25 17:31:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15645552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keithyourpal/pseuds/keithyourpal
Summary: Three years after Sam Holt returns to Earth, bringing news of Voltron and the imminent Galra threat, Adam and Shiro meet again.





	A Heartbeat Closer

The knock on his door comes a few hours past midnight. Adam picks his head up from the desk, where he fell asleep hours before with his glasses still on. The indent on his forehead smarts as he pushes back in his chair, still only half-awake, and tries to shake the numbness from his arms.

“Go _away_ , Griffin!" he calls in annoyance as he stumbles across the room. His roommate Clark threatened to throw Adam’s terrarium out in the hall the next time one of his students dropped by for late night complaints about their grades. The door slides to the side with a low hiss. “For the last fucking time, I’m not checking your astronomy homework agai--” 

He falters at the sight of Commander Iverson standing in the hall. His face is pale, almost sallow. “Commander Iverson! It’s you, sir. What--?”

“Come with me,” Iverson says in a hushed voice. “Now.”

Adam hesitates.

“ _Now_.”

Adam follows him down the hall in bare feet, pajama bottoms, and an oversized t shirt that used to belong to--damn, he wishes Iverson had let him grab his jacket. They walk through the silent, dark halls, passing patrols and a couple of cadets trying to sneak out. Iverson doesn’t pay them any mind, just keeps walking until Adam realizes they’re heading toward the on-base housing complex for officers’ families.

“Commander, what’s going on?” His mind jumps from one outlandish thought to the next. Is one of his parents sick? One of his grandparents? Why wouldn’t they just call him? 

“Just keep quiet and follow me.”

Iverson takes a right once they’re inside the lobby and holds open the door to the common room. When he steps aside, allowing Adam to see into the room beyond, everything stops. His breathing, his heart, his brain.

There on the sectional sofa, with one arm around his dozing wife, sits Commander Holt. Commander Holt, who died two years ago, along with Adam’s everything, his life, his hopes, his second chances. Adam stumbles back a step and grabs for support, catching hold of Iverson’s upper arm.

“Sam,” Iverson says.

Commander Holt looks over, blinking tiredly. He moves his arm gently so as to not disturb his wife and gets to his feet. Iverson puts a hand on the back of Adam’s shoulder and nudges him forward.

“I don’t--” Adam says, trying to draw away from Commander Holt’s ghost but Iverson won’t let him, he just keeps them moving forward steadily, “this is--but you’re--”

“Son, it’s okay,” Commander Holt says as he approaches, smiling. His face, although much more wrinkled and gaunt than Adam remembers, is no less kind. “It’s me. I’m real.”

He hugs Adam with thin, bony arms before guiding him to one of the tables on the other side of the room. Iverson pulls out a chair for Adam then heads to the breakfast counter with the soda fountain and coffee maker.

Adam doesn’t speak. Neither does Commander Holt. They just stare at each other while Iverson bustles around for a few minutes, making noise. He comes back with three steaming cups of black, bitter coffee and a handful of sugar packets and creamer.

“You’re alive,” Adam says finally. “You’re _alive_. You’re--” and he stops, because he doesn’t want to see Commander Holt, because if he’s here then all it does is make him hope again when he’s tried so hard to move on, to just sweep up the pathetic pieces that the Kerberos mission smashed his life into.

“We all are. Me, Matt . . . and Shiro.” 

He and Iverson move the cups aside just before Adam slams his fist on the table, unable to hold back the ugly wail that leaves him. All he feels is the guilt and anger that’s been steeping inside him for two years, and when he cries it’s out of remorse and shame more than relief or joy.

“Oh, God,” he sobs into his hands. “Oh, thank God.”

Commander Holt rubs his back soothingly, like the doting parent Adam remembers him as, before he died and reappeared as a skeleton of a man with gray hairs in his beard and spider veins surrounding his soft, gentle eyes.

“Easy, son,” Iverson mutters, clearing his throat. He pats Adam’s other shoulder once, twice before snatching up his coffee again, clearly out of his element. Adam takes off his glasses and wipes at his eyes, because Iverson comforting him is even more ridiculous than the fact that Commander Holt has returned from the dead from the outer rim of the solar system.

Adam meets Commander Holt’s gaze, having to squint to see his face clearly. “Please, Sam--Commander... tell me, how--how did you--” His voice breaks. “How is he?”

“He’s doing great, Adam. Real great.” Commander Holt picks up his cup of coffee and stirs in two creams, one sugar with as slow as humanly possible, then takes a long sip. He glances to Iverson. “. . . I can’t tell you all the details. But he’s healthy. His disease is gone.”

“Gone? H-how?”

“I can’t say.”

Adam looks from Commander Holt to Iverson dumbly, jaw hanging open. This has to be just another sick, desperate recurring dream, like the ones that he thought were finally done haunting him. The thought that Takashi is alive was delusional enough without this.

He wants to laugh. Instead he just downs a gulp of burning coffee and hopes it’s enough to wake him enough.

“I know this has to be hard for you to hear, Adam, but I’m real, I’m here, and I’m telling you the truth. Shiro is alive. He’s okay. Heck, he’s better than okay, he’s--”

“Sam,” Iverson interrupts quietly.

Commander Holt sighs. “The details are classified. Admiral Sanda didn’t want you to know that I made it back to Earth at all.” His lips purse on the rim of his cup. “But you deserve to know.”

“Right,” Adam says. “I’m glad. Is he--is he here?”

If all this is real, then maybe tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that they can see each other again and finally, finally have a talk, the one he’s been through so many times in so many different ways in his head.

But Commander Holt’s face dashes the tiny flutter of hope in his chest. “No. I’m sorry. I wish they were. Believe me, I want my son back as much as you want Shiro back.”

“I know you do, sir.”

“But they’re doing something great out there,” Commander Holt adds, ignoring the pointed cough Iverson gives. “And if that’s the part they’re meant to play, then this is ours.”

He sets his cup aside and takes both of Adam’s shoulders, one in each hand. “And you and I are going to be right here waiting when they’re ready to join us. Okay, son?”

“Okay. Sir. Yes, sir.”

Commander Holt pulls him into another hug. Before, he was always such a strong, brilliant, joyful man. Now, as he shakes with a silent sob in Adam’s arms, Adam almost wishes he was none the wiser about any of this, because now all he can think of is that whatever or whoever did this to Commander Holt must still be out there with Takashi.

  


**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot of complicated feelings about s7 and while I knew what happened was going to happen and made peace with it beforehand, it was still a bit upsetting. So this is an AU of sorts where we get to see Adam's reaction to the news that Shiro is alive and then, instead of dying, he gets to reunite with him.
> 
> I've included this in my "shiro/adam + shiro/keith" series for organization's sake, but this particular fic will focus only on the shadam side of things since it is, after all, from Adam's POV. 
> 
> I respect the show's decision to depict loss during warfare, so I don't really want to call this a "fix it" fic even though I guess that's technically what this is.


End file.
